Abandoned video game challenge

Rebels: Prison Escape, an abandonware video game from 2004 by a Hungarian studio that went bust.

To me it was always a mystery why it wouldn't work. There is no information about the game, no walkthroughs, no fixes, patches or even videos on YouTube except a few cinematics and old amateur footage.

The challenge, if anyone has time and curiousity - figure out if it's possible to go beyond the first level prison. To me both this version and the retail copy I had about 10-14 years ago would crash after finishing the first prison. It produces a crash log but I have no clue whatsoever. It's one of those games that Ross Scott might want to do a video of Game Dungeon considering how cryptic the internet is about this game, but until then...

This is the only game I saw that took the prison thematic seriously and made it work.

It's basically an Isometric RTS/Steath like Commandos or Robin Hood.

CarltonTroisi likes this

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

I took a small look inside the data, but haven't load the executable thorough.
(it asked for my administrator priviliges. No dont want that, just yet. Didnt loaded it in a vm)

My theory:
if you want to play the other levels, change the level-play order (as a workaround for the crash.)
Go to folder "rebels_data", open levels.cfg with your text editor (after you made a backup of the file), inside the file goto "[levels]", change the level-order and save the file.

I took a small look inside the data, but haven't load the executable thorough.
(it asked for my administrator priviliges. No dont want that, just yet. Didnt loaded it in a vm)

My theory:
if you want to play the other levels, change the level-play order (as a workaround for the crash.)
Go to folder "rebels_data", open levels.cfg with your text editor (after you made a backup of the file), inside the file goto "[levels]", change the level-order and save the file.

And what does rebels_tweak executable in the rebels_data folder?

Thanks, good try but...

Didn't help, the game still considers upon "new game" the first level as the first level.

The way it works, is when you complete the first, you open the next level, and etc. Therefore it's not really a problem to load the second level straight away. I'd want to find out what's in the other and how to unlock them, but among others things, I'm curious why won't the second level (psychiatric hospital) work. But you can't play them in random order and you can't avoid the game crashing upon loading the second level.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

If there's no source code it would be nearly impossible to fix such a crash.

Some folks have worked miracles by reviewing ASM in de-compiles but it's not typical that such things would yield useful insights.

I have no clue. The link provided is the only thing I found.

Sad if this is the final answer.

I wonder though if it's possible to circumvent the locked levels and access other levels to see if they work, because the thing that I saw crashing was only at loading the 2'nd level.

Edited by Anderson, 12 February 2018 - 06:07 AM.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

I came into this thinking this was about games nobody else has played or covered and to my dismay I found out it was in fact about literally unfinished games.

What genre is this thing?

It is a finished game but one that seems to have had horrible troubleshooting and apparently didn't sell well at all.

It's a stealth, real time strategy, tactical adventure. Picture the Commando series with different characters having different traits, strengths and weaknesses.

Rebels : Prison Escape is so obscure and unknown that there are no walkthroughs, no news, no discussions about it, which leads me to believe nobody ever completed it.

There might be​ a way to force the game to unlock/launch next levels beyond the Hospital one (second level) that causes crashing but I have no knowledge of how to do this on my own.

Edited by Anderson, 12 February 2018 - 06:05 AM.

V-Man339 and CarltonTroisi like this

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...